The Path to Untangling Fate
by Rye Mellark
Summary: AU: She was the reason he had to beat Yuki. She was the reason he needed to become part of the Juunishi and break the curse. Because Honda Tohru—the ditzy onigiri who had turned him into a cat when they had first met; the angel who had accepted his other cursed form—had become Kyo's reason to live.


**Disclaimer:** All characters from Fruits Basket are the intellectual properties of Ms Natsuki Takaya.

**Author's notes:** Hello people. This would be my third shot at trying to write a work of fiction involving an Anime/manga and my very first one revolving around the universe of Fruits Basket.

I am already placing a warning here that this narrative is set in an alternate universe setting. If you have read my other works, I'm pretty confident that you guys know I am addicted to writing 'what-if' scenarios.

For those who have been following my other works of fiction, I would like to apologise for being unable to update them at this point in time. I am currently in the final stretch of 2nd Year College and my schedule is getting pretty hectic what with all the exams and preparations I'm currently undertaking. Sadly, I won't be able to update until after November 20th.

That being said, I hope you guys enjoy this chapter as much I have enjoyed writing it. R, R & R

**PS:** This chapter contains some spoilers for those who haven't read the manga.

* * *

Chapter 1

The night air still bore a crisp, chilly bite to it courtesy of winter seemingly overstaying its welcome and lingering on—or as the young man preferred to put it, _trespassing_—well into the first fortnight of spring.

Save for a stray cloud or two that occasionally drifted past his field of vision, the sky was almost a pristine canvas of navy. The moon which normally shone brightly against the matte expanse was nowhere to be seen. Tonight, the silver disc had fully donned its veil of midnight blue, hiding the radiance it reflected and allowing innumerable scattered pinpoints of light to finally take centre stage; each one of them caught up in their own eternal and jubilant waltz with their neighbours among the heavens.

The adolescent was currently resting his body against the cool wooden roof, wilfully ignoring the shingles that were slightly digging into the bony bits of his back. Having looked up to those celestial fireflies since he was taken in by his shishou—_no,_ his dad—at a young age, he'd found himself no stranger to the aforementioned sensation which, with time, had barely bothered him in the least.

The rooftop, eventually, had become his place of momentary solace. The stars ended up being his stoic yet ever present companions.

Even if he _knew_ at the back of his mind that they were nothing more than inanimate spheres of hydrogen and of helium, they never left him during those times when he cried himself to sleep. They never faltered shining even as he went through the darkest days of his young life. Instead, they seemed to have taken on a brighter incandescence. It was as if they were urging him to keep going.

And so, he did. He desperately held on to life; never letting go of it despite the venomous remarks his own clan had directed at him from every which way. In spite of the impending fact that he would be isolated and caged in a cell once his secondary education was over, he continued to move forward. He even hoped against all hope that he would find himself accepted one day and be spared from the fate he feared the most.

Looking back at it now, perhaps he ought to thank those stars after all. They had led him to wait for something; anything that would have made those earnest desires of his to come true.

However, when he finally did happen upon the answer to his prayers, it came as a huge shock to him that it was someone, rather than something.

_Tohru_.

Twice, he had promised to protect this girl. Twice did he also fail to do so.

He wasn't able to bring her back home safely that day. He had been so eager to meet her face to face at last; so excited to finally do something right for once that he ended up getting himself lost in his search instead.

He ran away when Kyoko thanked him for his efforts, feeling betrayed and utterly useless even as she tried to cheer him up. Even then, Tohru's mother still asked him to keep his vow before he was able to get away from earshot.

During a time when the opportunity presented itself once more for him to stay true to his word, he was unable to save Tohru's mother due to his own cowardice. He had been so terrified of transforming into an animal in public that he found himself rooted in place. When his body was finally able to move by his own volition, it had been already too late.

The scene that unfolded in front of his eyes had been awfully sickening. The distinct sound that metal made as it crumpled in on itself had already affected him. However, his knees almost buckled in and gave way when he heard the stomach churning sound of multiple bones being broken simultaneously—instantaneously—by the force of impact. A few feet away from where he had been, Kyoko's battered body laid limp against the road; her blood strewn out into a pool of scarlet; drenching the sun scorched asphalt.

Her eyes were already starting to glaze over when they had wandered and locked with his own; recognition evident in her pallid features. No matter how much he tried, he couldn't break away from her pleading gaze. He couldn't turn around and just leave her behind.

'I won't forgive you—' she appeared to have said in between faltering and laboured gasps for air.

Upon hearing those words, his mind started its descent into chaos. With shame and panic permeating his every thought, he began to turn away. What started to be slow, mindless footsteps quickened in pace. He would have fully broken into a sprint if he hadn't managed to hear another word she had uttered.

'—unless…'

Such a faint sound it had been. Without the enhanced hearing he possessed—of origins he grudgingly knew about—he would have missed it altogether among the sea of concerned commotion.

Abruptly, he turned around, balancing himself on the balls of his feet. Without truly thinking it through, he drew himself closer to her—less than an arm's length away. Copper depths —leaning more towards a dark orange—met brown ones once more. Regardless of the pain that they bore, there was an unmistakable softness to them that reminded him the beginnings of a smile.

No matter how wan it was, she did smile at him. And the warm comfort that her small smile held…it bore a stark contrast to the enveloping coldness of death that was looming over her.

He couldn't understand how a person could have been so selfless. Out of all the condemning reactions from Kyoko that his mind had been forming, this was how she had chosen to spend her final moments—by consoling the tawny-haired youth who had abandoned her only seconds ago.

'Gomenasai,' the boy had said hoarsely, as the warm tears he had been desperately trying holding back trickled down his cheeks.

His eyes had already begun to sting but never did he break eye contact from her again. Unceremoniously, he dropped down onto both of his knees, completely disregarding any possible reactions he may have elicited from other people around him. His cargo pants were soon soaking up the ever growing pool of blood. His palms fared no better.

Furiously, he wiped away the tears with the back of his hands in a mildly successful attempt to clear his blurring vision. In response, she slowly shook her head. She weakly reached out with a bloodied hand and brushed it against his tear-stained cheek. Tears intermingled with blood, leaving his face marred by the viscous liquid.

Such an effort probably would have taken most of her remaining strength. The fact only made itself apparent when she mouthed another word—her last one directed at him—without having her wavering voice coming out of those pale lips.

_Promise_.

The string of words that had caused him to run away and come back all suddenly settled into place. The woman's intended meaning finally made itself known to him. Suddenly, the memories of the things he'd said and the way he'd acted when Tohru had gone missing five years ago had resurfaced and once again reached his consciousness.

* * *

'Pull yourself together will you,' his younger self had blurted out in order to try and calm a bleary eyed and hopelessly hysterical Kyoko.

It didn't matter even if his voice had been cracking and squeaking out every other word back then. It had been an imperative he'd placed on his himself to calm down the distraught woman. He couldn't bear the thought of having the closest person he'd had to a friend becoming sad.

'I'll definitely find her! I'll definitely save her! I'll protect her,' he'd once exclaimed, curling his small trembling hand into a determined fist.

'I promise that as a man.'

* * *

'Kyoko-san,' the adolescent began to say, the word coming out being barely above a whisper, 'I promise.'

As if an understanding had been reached between the two of them, Tohru's mother gave him a weak nod; her own coagulating blood smearing against and soiling her own cheek in the process. She blinked heavy lidded eyes once more before closing them for what would've been the final time; the smile that she bore earlier on having never left her delicate features.

'Kyoko-san,' he remembered himself saying her name repeatedly, as if his voice could call her back from the other side.

'Don't leave, please! For Tohru's sake, don't leave,' he begged of her; trying to force down the lump that had formed in his throat and say something more.

He half expected for a reply of some sorts—a groan of acknowledgement from her would have sufficed—but nothing came his way. Her eyes never peeled open nor did her chest rise and fall in a steady rhythm again. She was lying there stoic and unmoving; her body set in its helpless, prone position by the freezing nature of death.

After some time, the commotion around him had died down to hushed murmurs. The silence that had then followed left him feeling inexplicably empty. Not long after, the sound of sirens took over, heralding the arrival of an ambulance to take Tohru's mother away.

Throughout all this, he couldn't stop himself from crying; his heart painfully thrashing against his tightening chest. Tears laced with blood collected at his chin until they formed large droplets that dribbled off and ultimately stained his hooded cardigan. His throat had already turned raw from coughing; dry from constantly breathing in the cold spring air in ragged gasps. His vision was by now nothing more than a fuzzy composite of muted shades and hues; the shapes of the people around him and his surroundings becoming indeterminable from each other.

He'd never been good at dealing with a person's death if his mother's passing away had served as any indication. But hearing someone was never going to come back was an entirely different thing from actually seeing another life's flame snuffed out of this plane of existence _firsthand_. It shook him to the core. Grief and anguish, he realised, were far more debilitating and immobilising than the fear he'd felt earlier. The physical pain he'd been experiencing until that point in time was replaced by numbness.

When a hand had given his shoulder a solid squeeze, he remained still. Even if he wanted to move, his muscles had already slackened from the emotional and physical strain stemming from what had happened. When a voice belonging to a male had told him how awfully sorry he was for what happened, he remained quiet. When the tawny-headed boy was told that he shouldn't be so hard on himself and that it wasn't his fault, he remained alarmingly unresponsive and catatonic.

Even when strong arms had picked him off his knees, the adolescent made no visible signs of protest or retaliation. He had been far too drained for that. The last thing that he remembered was being led to what must have been a stretcher before his mind had lost its battle with oblivion.

After an indeterminable amount of time, he'd woken up to find himself inside the sterile, four-walled confines of a standard hospital room. For a moment, he had felt disorientated. He was still heavily plagued by the accident and his mind was still processing the fact that he was no longer out on the streets. The pungent smell of alcohol and bleach filled his nostrils, only adding to his confusion. He was beginning to hyperventilate and frantically look around the room when the door that had been caging him in thankfully opened and a familiar voice managed to calm his fraying nerves.

'Kyo, it's alright, I'm here,' his honorary father hushed; rushing towards the trembling boy's side.

Without any warning, Kyo had once thrown his weakened arms around Kazuma's torso, the boy swiftly but gingerly placing his head between the older man's neck and shoulder as tears began to freely flow down his face once more. Never having had any close physical contact with the martial arts teacher, Kyo expected the grizzly-haired man to flinch from the hug. Instead, he felt strong arms reassuringly wrap around his shoulders.

'The accident earlier wasn't your fault you know,' the boy heard the older man say.

'But it _was_. I was there shishou! If I had taken her arm and pulled her close to me, Kyoko-san would have lived. I was scared. I was so _bloody_ _scared_ of turning into a darned cat! She died…because of _me_,' the teenager had managed to say between intermittent sobs. His voice had only gotten worse since that tragic morning.

'Kyo, I need you to listen to me,' Kazuma said, his voice becoming stern; demanding the boy's attention.

'I know right now, you feel as if you could've done something to save her but the local news station, the initial forensics report and autopsy revealed that that wasn't the case. The car had been speeding too fast. Even someone with the quickest of reflexes wouldn't have had the capacity to save her. If anything, both of you would've been killed if you did reach out for her.'

'Wouldn't it have been better off if I died as well? No one would love a monster like me—' Kyo said only to choke on his words; reflexively sending himself into a coughing fit.

'Don't you dare say that Sohma Kyo,' his father snapped. The man's arms loosened their grip; allowing the boy to regain his breath. At the same time, a calloused hand patted his back; never leaving it or stopping until the hacking coughs had diminished.

'Are you willing to just leave me behind like that? Darn it Kyo! Kami-sama knows how scared _I _was when I heard you were involved in a car accident. I thought I was going to_ lose_ you.' The other man's voice had quickly softened and Kyo soon heard and felt his father crying alongside him, the older man's chin resting against his messy mop of fiery hair; dampening it as more time had passed by.

As it was, Kyo would've continued in his reverie if it weren't for the fact that he'd heard wood noisily making contact against wood. Seconds later, he could detect the rhythmic creaking of someone ascending the ladder leading up to the roof. Realising that his eyes had become watery from reliving past events, he hastily wiped them with the sleeve of his cardigan and hoped the darkness concealed the redness.

'Kyo-kun,' asked a sweet, tender voice he'd come to know and love.

'Yeah Tohru, I'm here,' he said, glad that his own voice wasn't cracking or betraying his recent emotional journey.

He turned around to see her head just poking out of the corner of the roof, a smile gracing her lips. Even in the dark, her eyes glimmered much like the stars that littered the night sky. He couldn't help but give a smile in return; a certain warmth suddenly beginning to spread across his cheeks.

She was the reason he had to beat Yuki. She was the reason he needed to become part of the Juunishi. She was the reason he had to break the curse. Because Honda Tohru—the ditzy onigiri who had turned him into a cat when they had first met; the angel who had accepted his other cursed form—had become his reason to live.


End file.
